Review of cytostatics wastewater degradation by ozone and advanced oxidation processes: Results from Cuban studies.

Among pharmaceuticals, cytostatics are a category of emerging contaminants that are of particular environmental concern, because of their mutagenic and carcinogenic characteristics. Concern about the presence of these drugs in the environment has increased in the last decades because of their potential harm to aquatic organisms and human health and their long-term cumulative impact on the environment, even at low concentrations in the order of ppb to ppt (μg/L to ng/L). In this paper we provide of an overview of the use of ozone and (or) advanced oxidation processes to eliminate cytostatics from the pharmaceutical wastewaters focusing on studies undertaken in Cuba. The review revealed that these treatments are suitable to degrade several antineoplastic drugs of different chemical structures and to safety dispose of wastewaters to the environment. In addition, we describe the analytical methods used for the determination of the fundamental by-products of applied treatments.The accepted manuscript in pdf format is listed with the files at the bottom of this page. The presentation of the authors' names and (or) special characters in the title of the manuscript may differ slightly between what is listed on this page and what is listed in the pdf file of the accepted manuscript; that in the pdf file of the accepted manuscript is what was submitted by the author